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Two years ago my buddy and I had to make 3 trips each from the waiting line to the car (which isn't terrible.. but it's a bit of a walk). This year we're both getting hand trucks to load everything on at the car and only make one trip. Also it'll be a lot easier to move to/in the line and easier when packing up and leaving on Sunday.

I'll consider it. I need a job first to make up for all the money I am spending for PAX this year. At least with the handcart I can pretend I am rushing towards platform 9 3/4 into a world of BYOC magic

Great idea with the carts guys but what about people that fly in. Double trips for them I guess.

Well they do make smaller hand carts, usually referred to as luggage carts that fold down and can easily fit into a checked (somewhat big) suitcase on the plane. If you only have carry-on luggage I doubt you could fit one in that. Those would also work. Something like this;

Great idea with the carts guys but what about people that fly in. Double trips for them I guess.

Well they do make smaller hand carts, usually referred to as luggage carts that fold down and can easily fit into a checked (somewhat big) suitcase on the plane. If you only have carry-on luggage I doubt you could fit one in that. Those would also work. Something like this;

Not as sturdy as the other hand trucks, but I'm sure it'll do the trick. You would just need to be a little more careful if you were walking from your hotel to the event (a few blocks away).

I have the hand truck originally mentioned and I could probably fit it into a large duffel bag but it ended up being a real pain to keep everything on when starting and stopping (especially since my case doesn't have a solid bottom). If you can swing it, a cart would make things way easier.

PAX Prime attendee since 2004, BYOC attendee since 2006.
East attendee since 2014. South attendee since 2015.
Upcoming PAXes: East 2015
ALL HAIL BALL!

The small Magna hand trucks mentioned fold down flat and pretty compact. You also wouldn't check it or try to stick it in the overhead; gate check it like people do with strollers and such. Gate checked items are free and you get it back as soon as you get off the plane, effectively.

On a side note, Costco and Sam's usually carry those small Magna hand trucks for cheaper than Amazon and you could physically check it out first.

The MagnaCart hand trucks are awesome, I use one to carry my computer to BYOC every year. I have a full sized tower and a 21" widescreen monitor, and with a couple of towels and some bungee cords it's very sturdy and stable - and nothing's going to come apart until you're ready. All I do is set up the handtruck, put it down flat (i.e. not standing upright on its wheels), lay down a towel, then put my case on it and bungee that down. Next I stand it back up, wrap my monitor in another towel and put it screen-side towards the frame of the cart, and bungee that sucker securely in place as well. Then all I have left to do is toss my keyboard/mouse/gamepad/headphones/cables/etc into a messenger bag, and I'm good to go. Heck, the fully loaded cart even fits in my Subaru, so I can package it up before I leave the house.

BigRed, I'm not sure if it's too early for this, but for those of us hoping to snag a BYOC badge when someone decides they don't want it and apply for a refund, will there be a waiting list, or should we just continue to camp the BYOC twitter feed for an announcement?

And for that matter, since we've bought our regular passes already, what would the mechanism be for adding a BYOC badge to that?

Where was BYOC held in 2011? That's to bad you can't get the room we got in 2010.

The room we had in 2010 was a combination of 3 convention center rooms. The room in 2011, was the same room, sans 1 of those combined rooms. The room for 2012 is unknown at this moment.. but I would be surprised if it's much different from 2011.

This has probably been said a million times before, but I want to get my voice out because BYOC is such a big deal for me.

For the past 3 years, my family and I have done BYOC for PAX along with my best friends for 2 of the years. It made PAX one of the best and most magical times of the entire year. But this time we didn't even get a chance to buy BYOC tickets. Half of us didn't get any PAX tickets at all but that is understandable

But I have a hunch that the reason BYOC tickets went so fast is because a lot of people had no idea what they were signing up for. I have a feeling that BYOC will be rather "dead" compared to previous years because the people going are not of the same dedicated type as previous years. It would be nice if something was done to ensure the buyers of BYOC know exactly what it is. Maybe I'm completely wrong and BYOC will be just like every other year, but I just wanted to get my 2 cents out.

This has probably been said a million times before, but I want to get my voice out because BYOC is such a big deal for me.

For the past 3 years, my family and I have done BYOC for PAX along with my best friends for 2 of the years. It made PAX one of the best and most magical times of the entire year. But this time we didn't even get a chance to buy BYOC tickets. Half of us didn't get any PAX tickets at all but that is understandable

But I have a hunch that the reason BYOC tickets went so fast is because a lot of people had no idea what they were signing up for. I have a feeling that BYOC will be rather "dead" compared to previous years because the people going are not of the same dedicated type as previous years. It would be nice if something was done to ensure the buyers of BYOC know exactly what it is. Maybe I'm completely wrong and BYOC will be just like every other year, but I just wanted to get my 2 cents out.

I don't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell wouldn't spend an extra $35 on something without knowing what it was. This theory going around that people have bought BYOC tickets without knowing what BYOC is seems a bit silly. BYOC has always sold out at a much faster rate than PAX badges themselves. I imagine that if you look at the increased demand for PAX badges this year and the speed at which BYOC sold out last year, you'll come to the conclusion that BYOC selling out so quickly isn't because of anything but increased demand.

This has probably been said a million times before, but I want to get my voice out because BYOC is such a big deal for me.

For the past 3 years, my family and I have done BYOC for PAX along with my best friends for 2 of the years. It made PAX one of the best and most magical times of the entire year. But this time we didn't even get a chance to buy BYOC tickets. Half of us didn't get any PAX tickets at all but that is understandable

But I have a hunch that the reason BYOC tickets went so fast is because a lot of people had no idea what they were signing up for. I have a feeling that BYOC will be rather "dead" compared to previous years because the people going are not of the same dedicated type as previous years. It would be nice if something was done to ensure the buyers of BYOC know exactly what it is. Maybe I'm completely wrong and BYOC will be just like every other year, but I just wanted to get my 2 cents out.

I don't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell wouldn't spend an extra $35 on something without knowing what it was. This theory going around that people have bought BYOC tickets without knowing what BYOC is seems a bit silly. BYOC has always sold out at a much faster rate than PAX badges themselves. I imagine that if you look at the increased demand for PAX badges this year and the speed at which BYOC sold out last year, you'll come to the conclusion that BYOC selling out so quickly isn't because of anything but increased demand.

I don't think it's a silly notion at all. I wont go as far as speculating that "most" of the BYOC passes went to people that don't fully understand what BYOC is (though that is my hope, cause I still want to get my hands on one somehow, heh), but I'm quite sure a moderate chunk did. I wouldn't even be surprised if several of the scalped 3-day passes on ebay were BYOC inclusive, but we'll never know for sure about that one.

I think the best way you could ensure that only those who are actually interested in participating in BYOC get the BYOC passes would be to only open BYOC registration a month or so after main registration, and have the only announcements of BYOC reg be in the [PRIME] or [EAST] BYOC thread and @prime_BYOC / @east_BYOC. Also, only accounts that had valid registration for all 3 days (either one 3-day pass, or three distinct 1-day passes, not just 3 saturdays) could access BYOC registration.

With the uncertainty of BYOC badges going to folks who plan to show up, I'm working on a group of people who plan to LAN. You don't need to stay there the whole time, but its geared towards people who plan on being in BYOC ~50% or more.

If you or your group is interested in doing more LANing at BYOC post your interest, or send me a PM

I disagree about raising the price -- PAX is about inclusion, and while I'm not in this situation, I know many people who have a hard time getting enough money to pay for the current costs of PAX+BYOC.

but getting 500 seats would be nice. Also figuring out an alternative to BYOC being the $35/weekend 'stash your stuff spot' would also be good.

So, I'm thinking about trying out Minecraft, but I know very little about it. Is this something that I can play with others at BYOC?

Also, Diablo III. 'Nuff said.

Additionally, with the changes to groups and such in WoW, it might be feasible to have group runs or raids for those who are still playing WoW. If there is interest, maybe a time could be scheduled and a faction picked?

What kind of setup do you think it would take to have a hardcore multiplayer minecraft server? Something with permadeath for the weekend. Are there mods out for that type of gameplay? Is there interest in doing some kind of last man standing, team deathmatch, or scavenger hunt?

So leave it to me to be late to the game this year for a PAX pass. So that leaves the question - how do i go about buying a pass from someone who has already ordered one and doesn't need it.
I know in past years PAX has refused to allow people list them for over orginal price - but i don't see any as of such yet. So has it been banned this year? Am i better off creeping around the dark corners of ebay / craigslist?

I guess to clarify the LAN list, I'm talking about people who'd like to actually lan vs 'store their stuff'. With any hope we can get 50 or so people in 2 or 3 tables so we don't have to run around the room to find people who want to participate in various games.

BYOC Pass acquired! And very excited that after two years of showing up to BYOC with a company "sponsored" (borrowed) PC, I'm finally bringing my own hand-built rig this year, with a core built around the i7 I won in BYOC last year.

I have attended BYOC for a couple years now, and I remember that one year we were able to use the mic that was available to be used by the BYOC attendees so that they could announce games that other people might want to play with them(happened in the evening). I remember that worked out fairly well in past years ( '09 or '10 (been so long)) and I was wondering if we would be able to do it again for this year? I know you guys do announcements for some games already, but when you want to play a game when events are not occurring, trying to find people who are interested in the same game(off-spot-light-type-games for example) is hard sometimes.

I have attended BYOC for a couple years now, and I remember that one year we were able to use the mic that was available to be used by the BYOC attendees so that they could announce games that other people might want to play with them(happened in the evening). I remember that worked out fairly well in past years ( '09 or '10 (been so long)) and I was wondering if we would be able to do it again for this year? I know you guys do announcements for some games already, but when you want to play a game when events are not occurring, trying to find people who are interested in the same game(off-spot-light-type-games for example) is hard sometimes.

We should have something available on the intranet page for people looking to get games together.

Having tons of people coming up and using the mic was a big complaint in those years and we started reducing it last year.

I snagged one of the 2nd batch of BYOC tickets. Is it okay to just to bring my laptop? And is it safe to leave a laptop there? Obviously it would be hard for someone to walk out with a full tower, but a laptop is a lot easier to quickly grab.